Computer appreciation class highlights technology’s impact on daily life

John Gallagher, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science, created the class with the hope of offering students of any major a greater understanding of how the technology they use impacts the actions and outcomes of everyday life.

“Technology is everywhere and touches all of us. We make personal decisions and decisions in our workplace all the time in which technology impinges on us. I think having an understanding of what the technologies are doing and what they are capable of can better inform those decisions,” Gallagher said.

“I want to make sure when students walk out of the class, they will be able to have meaningful discussions on how things work, why they work and why they might fail, and to have some appreciation of how an engineer or computer scientist sits down and reasons through a problem and turns that into a computational machine that offers a solution,” he said.

The Computer Appreciation course was created with support from a generous gift to UC from College of Engineering and Applied Science alumnus Jim Goetz, with a goal to grow students’ computing knowledge across colleges. The gift also supported the expansion of the computer science program at UC with a newly established Department of Computer Science and provided scholarship support at UC, including the creation of the Marian Spencer Scholars Program. 

Enrolled students can find the full course description on Catalyst. For questions, email Prof. John Gallagher.